On Dec. 17, 2017, a power outage at the Atlanta airport was reported. Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport had to cancel all flights that Sunday afternoon. Inside, people used cellphones to illuminate dark terminals. Police evacuated the airport nearly five hours after the outage began. Some passengers reported seeing smoke in the airport when the power went out.

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ATLANTA, GA - DECEMBER 18: Passengers search for their luggage near rows of unclaimed baggage at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on December 18, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. Hundreds of flights were cancelled after a power outage at the airport. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

By
Greg Bluestein, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ATLANTA
—

For hours after an embarrassing power outage brought Atlanta’s busy airport to a standstill, the face of the city said nothing publicly about the unfolding catastrophe.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed didn’t speak publicly about the airport blackout until nearly 7 p.m. — about six hours after it was sparked by an electrical fire — when he took to his favorite medium of Twitter and then followed it up with a press conference before a bank of TV cameras.

Reed said Monday that he was hobbled by limited information about the extent of the fire because it took hours to send experts into the substation because of noxious fumes, even as he apologized to the thousands of passengers stranded in Atlanta and other airports. He only decided to speak publicly, he said, “when we were going to be right” about the details.

“We could always communicate better and more effectively,” Reed said. “But I did believe that it would be highly frustrating to hold a press event where we communicated nothing. Everyone knew that we had a fire that occurred, but we could not even know when we could get the airport up and operational.”

The city’s response to the blackout that disrupted flights around the globe has led to a cascade of criticism. And it’s difficult timing for the mayor, who hopes to leave office on a high note when he hands over the reins of City Hall to his successor in about two weeks.

He’s spending part of his final stretch in office addressing problems that have again made Atlanta the butt of jokes about its infrastructure problems. One of the loudest critics was former U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who vented on Twitter about the “total and abject failure” at the airport.

“I have no idea what happened here today. We all understand that snafus happen and most of the folks down here are doing their jobs to the best of their ability,” said Foxx, who was traveling through Atlanta on Sunday. “But, whatever the cause, it feels like this one was compounded by confusion and poor communication.”

The mayor and Georgia Power said the blaze knocked out both the substations and the backup system that powers Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Although firefighters responded to the fire shortly after it sparked around 12:45 p.m., it took about two hours to investigate and extinguish the blaze and hours more to clear the tunnels of noxious fumes, Reed said, before utility officials could inspect and begin to repair the damage.